Richard I - The Lionheart

by Adrian Hopwood Full gallery at the end of the Article Company – Crecy Models Price – £34.00 Scale –75mm Material – White Metal Code – CM902 Sculpted by – Salvatore Miraglia Superb ! Can I really start off a review like that ? Well I suppose I can if I genuinely mean it about this piece, and I think I do. I’ve never really paid much attention to Crecy models in the past, their releases fro some reason have gotten past under my radar. However, this one was sent to my by Matt and Celine, and I’m glad they did, because it’s rather opened my eyes. I certainly wasn’t expecting what was in the box, although the box art does make a few promises. It shows a well-painted example rendered by Enea Rovaris, and there’s thumbnails of two more heads beside the main picture of the model. On opening the box, it still hadn’t sunk in – two other heads……..Yes, three options are offered in the kit, one with a full helmet, the second with a pill-box type helmet, the third with a mail coif and a rolled circlet around the brow. Two of the heads show the face, and both look like they’ll be good to paint. Clothing and armour are well rendered and the flowing cloak looks convincing, along with the separate lower sections of the surcoat, again the folds being well rendered by the sculptor. Casting is nice and sharp, certainly the detail that the sculptor has put in place has been reproduced well, and clean up of the parts should be relatively painless. The mould part lines are restrained, and although on the example I have here there are a couple of rough areas on the casting, it’s on open sections of detail – like the flowing edge of the cloak or the top of the pill-box helmet – which should file up easily, the roughness finally polished away with some fine emery cloth. Parts fit is good too. I’ve done a dry run as usual with any review, although kits like this seem to require I get at lease one extra set of hands, and most of the components seem to socket together quite well. I’m not sure if the waist joint might need a wipe of filler, or perhaps just some jiggery-pokery with the joint keys might sort things out. Either way, a little time and effort here will see a good joint effected. The way that the parts have been separated reminds me a lot of what Pegaso or Romeo do with their larger knight kits, and whoever sorted this one out, did a good job of it. I think it must be a bit of a nightmare to do the separate lower sections of the surcoat – getting them to fit right when the moulds are made and the parts cast up would have me worrying ! As I say, these, along with the other areas of the kit, join up pretty well, and certainly any modeller who’s got a half dozen kits under his belt won’t be struggling to assemble this one. I think I’d advise painting the legs separately, prior to joining on the lower surcoat sections, and perhaps even painting the inner faces of these latter parts before adding them to the legs. After that, painting the inside of the cloak might be an idea prior to adding the bottom half of the figure to the top half. Well, that’s how I think I’d approach it anyway. Basically this is a super little offering in the now popular scale of 75mm. I think it might be able to fit in with other offerings from Pegaso and Romeo if they have anything of this period; otherwise you’ll just have to wait for another release from Crecy. Thanks to Matt and Celine at El Greco Miniatures for sending this along for review, the model is available from them at the address below, or by visiting their website. Adrian. El Greco Miniatures 63 Glebe Drive Brackley NN13 7BX United Kingdom Phone: +44 (0)1280 840364 Email:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Home Page: http://www.elgrecominiatures.co.uk